


Agatha Heterodyne and the Revenge of the King

by Sturzkampf



Series: The Trials of Moloch von Zinzer [8]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-08 01:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11071620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sturzkampf/pseuds/Sturzkampf
Summary: A shadow from the past returns to Mechanicsburg to seek revenge upon the Heterodyne!





	1. Dramatic Entrance

**Author's Note:**

> _Originally posted on the Jägerkin Forum_

Moloch Von Zinzer was enjoying a well-deserved cooked breakfast in one of the smaller refectories in Castle Heterodyne while doing his best to avoid the wide expectant eyes of the adorable black puppy sitting at his feet.

“No,” he told her sternly. “You know you aren't allowed to beg at the table.”

“Aw, but I'm so hungry.” whined the puppy. “I don't get fed enough for a growing girl. Go on, just a little piece of the sausage. Pleeeaaaase.”

“No. You know what your mother says. Now hush.”

“Aw,” the puppy whimpered. Moloch pretended to ignore her, but they were both aware of the small pile of bacon rind, the end of a sausage and a piece of black pudding that were accumulating at the edge of his plate. The puppy's tail began to wag. Moloch finished eating and was just lifting the plate to put the scraps down for her when...

“CASSIE!” a sharp female voice barked from the doorway behind them. “What have I told you about begging at table?! Stop that at once and come here this instant!” Moloch and the puppy both cringed.

“Aw, Mama” whined Cassie. “It was only a little bit of sausage.  I hardly had any breakfast and..”

“That's enough of that young lady! You've had plenty of biscuits already! Now come along! You'll be late for your obedience class!” Cassie walked over to her mother with her tail between her legs and her ears back. “Aw, but Mama...”.

“No! Not another word! And as for you Moloch, how many times do I have to tell you not to encourage her?!” She glared at him with her hands on her hips. Moloch looked suitably apologetic.

“Yes Florence. Sorry.”

The wolf-human construct gave a long-suffering sigh, familiar to mothers of small children throughout the multiverse. “Now come on Cassie. Let's get you washed and brushed.”

“Go along now,” added Moloch. “If you're good, I’ll take you to the docking towers at dinner time, so you can watch the _Sturzzeugs_ taking off.”

“Oh can I, can I?” squeaked Cassie, jumping up and down in excitement, her scolding already forgotten.

“Can you pick her up from the kennels at twelve?” Florence asked, handing Moloch a bag. “Here’s her dinner and your sandwiches.”

“Thanks. Twelve it is.” Moloch smiled as he watched his wife and daughter leave the room. Once he was sure the coast was clear he scraped his breakfast leftovers into a doggy bag for later.

\----------------*

For once the morning’s work did not include any unforeseeable freak accidents or unpredictable side effects, so Moloch was able to collect Cassie on time at midday and take her over to the new Mechanicsburg docking towers. He walked with his daughter through the streets, listening happily to her prattle about flying machines. The tourists were amazed and delighted by the talking dog. The locals, of course, took a pride in not noticing.

One beneficial consequence of The Great Siege of Mechanicsburg had been the opportunity it had given Agatha to instigate several urban renewal projects. One of the first had been the new airship docking towers; so much more convenient for direct access to the city than the airship landing fields located almost a kilometre outside the outer walls. Of course, the large passenger liners and freighters still had to use the old airfield, but now smaller personal dirigibles could dock in the very heart of the City - at a premium price for the mooring fees of course - to spare their wealthy occupants all the trouble of hiring carriages or waiting for the Corbettite shuttle to take them into Mechanicsburg.

The three towers had been constructed around the site of the old Heterodyne Observation Tower – destroyed by an unforeseeable freak accident during the Siege, the details of which it would be undiplomatic to repeat here. The Castle had not been at all pleased to learn that the tower would not be rebuilt exactly as it had been before – it didn’t like change – until it found out that it would be fully integrated into the new structures with full access to Agatha’s own improvements and modifications. It had been delighted at how far technology had advanced since its last major refit nearly a century before and it could usually be persuaded to accept innovation if it meant better, faster and more efficient death traps. If that didn’t work, it could always be bribed with the promise of more weather vanes.

Tower Three was not only a docking tower for aerostats. It also included landing platforms for the new heavier-than-air aerodynes - _Sturzzzeugs_ \- invented by Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and developed by Agatha, which were becoming increasing popular across Europa. It was these that fascinated Cassie and her parents would take her to the Arrivals Lounge whenever they had a spare moment. The lounge was another of Agatha’s innovations; an area at the top of the tower with large panoramic windows where people could go to meet arriving friends – or just to watch the magnificent aerial craft manoeuvring around the tower. The Old Masters would not have approved of such unproductive frivolity, but as Agatha was keen to show, she was not one of the Old Masters. Anyway, the city made a significant income from the over-priced concessions stands, which was why Moloch always brought his own sandwiches. He found a good vantage point from which to watch the traffic, took out Cassie’s bowl and poured in the regulation amount of Winalot measured out for him by Florence that morning. Then, with the paranoia of the experienced minion mechanic (and husband), he checked that his wife was nowhere in sight, and added the contents of his morning doggy bag to the bowl.

He unwrapped his own sandwiches and examined them critically. Once again, they contained an unnecessary amount of lettuce. Florence thought that he was putting on weight and that combined with Lady Heterodyne’s new ‘healthy eating’ initiative had led to a catastrophic decline in the cholesterol content and calorific value of his packed lunch. Fortunately for him, no Heterodyne, not even the most depraved and deranged of the Old Masters, had ever dared forbid their people a proper cooked breakfast.  Moloch crunched through the lettuce and wondered if it was too late to take back any of the contents of his daughter’s doggy bag. It was. The bowl had already been licked to a perfect shine.

Once she’d finished eating, Cassie jumped up and sat on her father’s lap so she could get a better view. Moloch listened indulgently as his daughter told him about all the different flying machines that were coming and going around the towers. She had all the books and knew the makes, specifications and performance of most of them by heart. What she really liked best were the _Sturzzeugs_.

“One day, I’m going to be a pilot, just like Mama!” she informed Moloch, not for the first time that day.

“Now don’t go calling her that. She’s an engineer who can fly and she’s proud of that. Why don’t you be an engineer like us? It’s much safer. Well, most of the time. Study hard, go to University...” Get away, as far away from Mechanicsburg as you can, he thought. Much as he loved his daughter, he really didn’t want her living the rest of her life in this place. All right, it was much safer than it used to be now Agatha was well and truly in charge, but Mechanicsburg was still Mechanicsburg and the spirit of the Old Masters was never far from the surface, even in Lady Heterodyne herself.

‘So why haven’t we moved away, gone somewhere safer, somewhere saner?’ he asked himself, as he half-listened to his daughter telling him all about the British-designed _Sturzzeug_ with the contra-rotating lifting impeller that eliminated problems with torque, which was landing at the lower platform. ‘Because I have a job here? Because I have nowhere else to go? Because Florence doesn’t want to leave her pack? Or maybe because, if everything does kick off again and Lady Heterodyne does embrace her heritage after all, I’d rather be on the inside and not in the path of the Ravening Monster that is The Heterodyne’. After all was said and done, Mechanicsburg was still the most impregnable fortress in Europa and it was being run by one of the most benign (most of the time) Sparks he had ever met. Even if Cassie grew up a little – odd – at least here she would be safe.

“Oh look!” squeaked Cassie, awaking Moloch from his reverie. He looked up to see a small dirigible approaching at speed, ignoring the increasingly urgent and angry signal lights and flags from the control tower. It weaved through the ordered queue of aerostats waiting their turn to manoeuvre and dock, causing several to take evasive action to avoid a collision. Moloch was not surprised to see the blue and white quartered circle of the Bayern Mechanisch Works on its nose.

The airship dived and came up under the private yacht on final approach to the tower, which frantically dumped ballast and performed an emergency climbing turn to avoid a collision. Moloch had a glimpse of the yacht’s captain making an expressive but uncomplimentary gesture to the pilot of the smaller craft. The intruder went straight for the docking port and hit far faster than regulations permitted – although not hard enough to do any damage. 

“So,” Moloch asked Cassie, who was watching the chaos with delight, “who’s going to get the blame for that, the helmsman or the Captain?”

“Honestly, Papa,” she sighed, with the tone of a daughter whose parents don’t know _anything_ , “that’s one of the new X5 models. It’s the self-fly model they made to try and compete with _Sturzzeugs_. They’ll only be one pilot. I bet he’s going to get a good beating with a rolled-up newspaper!”

Several Mechanicsburg officials, including some armed militiamen, were heading to the airlock where the errant dirigible had docked. The secure exit doors of the Arrivals Hall leading to the stairs and the lift closed to make sure the miscreant did not leave before he had had stern talking to about the basic principles of the Airway Code.

A magnificent figure emerged from the airlock. Moloch took one look, scoped his daughter into his arms and made a run for it. His exit was blocked, but there was still a place to hide. He pushed a certain panel in the wall in a certain place and it silently opened. Inside was a small room, with carpet, a comfortable chair a few books, a demijohn of ‘Old Sparky Hen’ and a tankard. Moloch hurried inside and the panel closed behind them. Lights activated in the ceiling to illuminate the little room.

“Oh Papa! What’s this?” asked Cassie.

“This?” replied Moloch, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “Oh, this is my double-secret hiding cupboard. I come here when I need to get away from everyone for a while. Not even the Castle can find us in here.”

“Oh cool!”

“I built it when we constructed the docking towers. It comes in useful sometimes. I thought having it next to a point where I could get a flight out of town would be a good idea.”

“Wow!”

“Er... I don’t think you need to tell anyone about this, okay? It’ll be our secret.”

“Not even Mama?”

“ _Especially_ not Mama. There’s times when I need to hide from her too.”

“So, who are we hiding from?”

“Him.”

Together they peered out of the viewing slit and watched the dramatic events unfolding in the arrivals hall.

\-------------------------------*

Corporal Schicklgruber, as a member of the Mechanicsburg Militia, was of course ready to lay down his life for The Heterodyne. On the other hand, it wasn’t something he’d been planning to do today. He was in charge of the security detail at Arrivals, so was the first to walk up to the dock at which the small airship had arrived. In his tall shako, complete with trilobite sigil and built in searchlight, his spotless white jacket worn over his red shirt, his striped trousers with the razor-sharp crease and his shiny leather boots, he looked every inch the official guardian of the City.

He had been surprised when the Castle itself took no action against the intruder immediately the airship had docked. He had known it take umbrage at far smaller insults to the honour of Mechanicsburg and The Heterodyne than that. On several occasions his job had been to guard over-ebullient tourists from the wrath of the Castle, rather than to guard the town from the deprivations of any invaders. Perhaps this was someone important the Castle or the Heterodyne was expecting, he thought, so it would be best to proceed with caution.

Schicklgruber did indeed recognise the magnificent figure who had emerged from the docking port, but it was most certainly not someone who he had expected to see. He pulled the lever to arm his rifle and pointed it at the intruder.

 “Just stay still and don’t move if you please,” he ordered.

“Of course,” replied the unwelcome visitor.

“I thought you were dead. As in, _properly_ dead.”

“I was. But I got better.”

“You know, we have standing orders to arrest you should you ever return and to shoot you on sight should you be a threat to the Heterodyne or Mechanicsburg.”

“Then I think you had better shoot me, for I have returned from Hell to conquer Mechanicsburg, and take my revenge upon Lady Heterodyne!”

“Er… okay. You realise that this is a state of the art Heterodyne model 41A pulse rifle capable of firing, armour piercing, high explosive or incendiary rounds and equipped with an under-barrel grenade launcher?”

“I am the most implacable, the most ruthless and the most evil enemy that Mechanicsburg has ever faced. Personally, I would recommend selecting the high explosive rounds, but do feel free to make use of your personal favourite.”

“Fair enough. You do know I can’t miss from this range, even without all these fancy targeting systems?”

“Time to do your duty for the Heterodyne!”

“Right you are then.” Corporal Schicklgruber raised the gun to his shoulder, flicked the selector to high explosive and pulled the trigger – and died.

\---------------------------*

Agatha Heterodyne awoke in tears. She’d had that nightmare about the wedding again. The one where Gil and Tarvek told her that the needs of state and a stable Europa must take precedence over love. The one where she’d been an onlooker at the Grand Ceremony where Gil had married Xerxsephina Blitzengaard and Tarvek had married Colette Voltaire to unite the rival power blocks in a single, co-operative, peaceful and prosperous Europan Union. The one where Mechanicsburg was left an isolated, irrelevant anachronism and the Lady Heterodyne was left an old maid in the garret. The one where the happy brides had thrown their bouquets and they’d been caught by Fraulein Snaug and Saana Tryggvason before she could get to them.

The sounding of the alarm gongs throughout the Castle dispelled her morbid imaginings. She levered herself up from the workbench where she had fallen asleep, wondering if her latest invention had somehow increased the local force of gravity. Ah yes, that was it, she’d been working all night –it might have been more than one, her memory of time was a bit vague - on an exciting new line of research that promised to make steel transparent. Then there had been that unforeseeable freak accident. After all the frustrating delays - the firefighting teams and the paramedics always take so long to clean up after themselves – she had at last managed to get back to work, but then she must have fallen asleep at her bench.

She forced herself fully awake, put her glasses on straight and brushed a couple of small cog wheels from her cheek, where they’d been embedded when she rested her head on the table. At the door of the lab, she almost collided with Violetta coming the other way. Like a faithful dog, her bodyguard had been sleeping at the threshold, but, having had some experience of working with The Heterodyne, on the other side of the reinforced laboratory door.

“What’s the emergency?” Agatha asked.

“I’m not sure,” replied the Smoke Knight. “The Castle seems a bit confused. Or maybe it’s just being awkward again.”

“Castle, what’s wrong?” Agatha demanded.

 “There is an intruder in Docking Tower Three,” Castle Heterodyne informed her. “Fighting is going on as we speak. I regret that our security forces are having some difficulty neutralising the threat.”

Agatha was already running down the corridor on her way to the gate.

“Who are we up against? What tech are they using?”

“I’m sorry, Mistress, I cannot say.”

“What? Why not?”

“I cannot say.”

“That sounds serious. There must already be a lot of collateral damage up there.”

By the time Agatha and Violetta reached the Gate of Colourless Fire they had been joined by Zeetha and some of the more enthusiastic minions, all responding to the emergency, although the only minion in the party who might actually be effective in combat was Fräulein Florence the Vapnoople’s wolf, who was quite capable of tearing even a Jäger to pieces if she got angry. R-79 would have been useful, but he had been taken to the Great Hospital requiring extensive repairs after that night’s unforeseeable freak accident. No-one seemed any the wiser as to the nature of the attackers. Agatha turned to the nearest minion, then scowled when she saw who it was.

“Hmph, oh it’s you,” she snapped. “Snaug, run to the armoury and fetch me a death ray. Bring it to the tower. Quick as you can now!”

“Yes Mistress,” replied Fräulein Snaug, wondering what she had done now to incur The Heterodyne’s displeasure. That incident with the white rabbit, the digestive biscuits and the hammer drill hadn’t been her fault, not really. She hurried off to do her Mistress’ bidding. Agatha scowled after her. She still hadn’t forgiven Snaug for catching that bouquet.

As they descended the causeway, they had a good view of the docking towers. Smoke was rising from the top of tower three and they could hear the faint sounds of shots and screams. There was a sudden puff of smoke, followed by the sound of the explosion a split second later. Perhaps the invasion had been contained. But across Mechanicsburg the alarm gongs continued to sound.

They reached the tower and ran up the stairs to the top (even Sparks have enough common sense not to use the lifts in an emergency). Everything had gone eerily quiet.

“Castle, has the attack been dealt with?” asked Agatha.

“I’m afraid not Mistress,” the Castle replied apologetically. “Regrettably, the intruder is still very much alive. I urge you to proceed with extreme caution. Let your minions go in first.”

“What? No, I...”

“Will wait for me and Violetta go first this time,” Zeetha told her. “You can always put us back together again afterwards.”

“With improvements!” The Heterodyne reassured them.

No-one noticed the expression on Violetta’s face at the reminder that when you were bodyguard to The Heterodyne, there were far worse things than death. She made a mental note to see a notary and have an official DNR notice made up; if she lived that long of course. They reached the entrance into the arrivals hall. The doors had been blown off. There was an ominous smell of cordite, blood and burnt flesh.

Zeetha and Violetta peered around the twisted remains of the doors and gasped. Very slowly, with weapons drawn, they advanced into the room. Agatha and her assembled minions followed cautiously. They were met by a burst of insane, hideous, triumphant, maniacal laughter.

“You!” gasped The Heterodyne.


	2. Uncontrolled Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you stop an enemy who can't be harmed?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Be warned. Things are about to get a bit dark in this story, with Original Character Death and Canon Character Death before the end. There is also some very, very bad language (in Skiffandian)._

Agatha looked around at the scene of mayhem. The arrivals lounge was littered with bodies and wounded men, Jägers and other servants of The Heterodyne. She noticed that one of the Jägers had been neatly and cleanly decapitated. That was going to be a tricky one to fix.

In the centre of the carnage stood Martellus von Blitzengaard, his arms casually folded, the signature arrogant smile on his face, unarmed and apart from a pair of asbestos boxer shorts, unclothed.

There were still plenty of loyal servants of the Heterodyne surrounding the invader, glaring at him with weapons drawn, but for some reason they weren’t attacking. Perhaps humans might be cowed by a dangerous opponent, but Zeetha was surprised to see her old comrades in arms Dimo, Maxim and Ognian hesitating to attack, even if all three of them were obviously wounded. She strode forwards, whirling her swords around her to warm them up.

“Are you waiting for a formal invitation or something?” she asked the Jägers sarcastically.

“No vait!” warned Dimo, pulling her back by her arm. “Dun hit heem!”

“Why not?” demanded Agatha. “Don’t tell me he’s given up.”

 “No,” shrugged Oggie. “He’z got dis schneaky science goink. Anytink you does to heem gets schot schtraight beck at hyu and he gets all healed op.”

“Cheatink, hy calls it,” added Maxim. “Dot’s vot happened to all dese odder guys.” He indicated the bodies around Martellus’ feet.

“He has protection that reflects damage?” exclaimed Agatha. “I don’t believe it!”

“Oh ja, it vorks fine,” Oggie assured her. “Vatch, hy’ll schow hyu.” He drew a unpleasant knife and walked up to the invader. “Hif hyu dun mind,” he asked politely.

“No please, go right ahead,” replied Martellus pleasantly, angling his head to expose his jugular vein.

“Vot hyu tink hy iz a complete idiot?” sneered Oggie.

“Ja!” replied Dimo and Maxim in unison. Oggie scowled at them, and plunged the knife into his enemy’s upper arm, twisted it, and then withdrew it. Martellus gave a cry of pain as the blood poured from the wound. Then, a cloud of sickly green light shimmered around him then shot back towards Oggie. The light tore open the Jäger’s leather coat and the arm beneath. Blood gushed from the deep wound, in exactly the same place where he had stabbed Martellus. The light beam raced back to Martellus, whose wound closed and healed without leaving a scar. Oggie turned to Agatha in triumph.

“Dere, hyu sees?”

“Impossible!” exclaimed The Heterodyne.

“But hy chust saw it happen! Hey hy can giff hyu anodder demonstration iv hyu missed it de fust time.” He turned back to Martellus and raised his knife.

“No! No, it’s okay,” Agatha assured him quickly, before the over-enthusiastic Jäger could do himself more damage. “What’s impossible is that he could have come up with such an elegant and advanced piece of tech.”

“ It’s called a Revivification Field,” boasted Martellus. “Though I say it myself, it is quite remarkably clever. And very effective, as you can see from all these fools. If I am wounded in any way, the field reaches out back along the direction of the attack to find the attacker, replicates the wound on their own body and sucks their _elan vital_ back to me to heal my wounds instantly. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

 “Castle, why aren’t you doing anything?” Agatha demanded. “Can’t you drop a falling block on him or something? Even if it’s reflected back at you, it’s not going to hurt you any more than I can repair, and you don’t have any life energy that Martellus can siphon off to repair himself.”

“I’m sorry Mistress, but I am afraid that this person has some mechanism on his person that prevents me from taking any action against him.”

“Ha!” gloated Martellus. “You forget that the late lamented Professor Tiktoffen was one of my agents. He passed all of his notes on to me! Including his Castle Controller!”

“No! I’ve fixed all those vulnerabilities.”

“Of course you did! But in a system as complicated as Castle Heterodyne there are always more to exploit. And with the methods provided by the Professor it was simplicity itself to hack into them.”

“Although in fact,” explained the Castle helpfully, “you have not managed to reach the same level of control as my old friend. I may not be able to take any action against you, but you are unable to control me, although don’t think I don’t know how hard you have been trying.”

Agatha frowned. “I don’t see any control mechanisms. Tell me the panel isn’t inside your underpants.”

“Tiktoffen’s arm-mounted dashboard was a crude device. We all know how susceptible it was to damage. My control system is wholly biological and integrated into my very body, as the many other upgrades that have made me into a superman. All are protected by my Revivification Field and will be repaired by the life energy of my foes, even as my body is repaired.”

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a breathless Fraulein Snaug, who had just run all the way from the Castle armoury, bringing a weapon for her Mistress. Agatha grabbed it from her and then looked at what she was holding.

“What do you call this?” she complained. “I need a Death Ray. A big Death Ray. This is just some clockwork machine cannon made of brass.”

Fraulein Snaug backed away, he eyes full of fear.

“But Mistress,” she whined, “the Castle told me to bring this one.”

“But _I_ told you to bring me a death ray! A DEATH RAY!!”

“It was really insistent, Mistress.” Fraulein Snaug looked around wildly at the ceiling, walls and floor as if they were about to attack her at any moment. “Really, _really_ insistent.”

“Well. It’s too late to do anything about it now.” She thrust the gun back into the arms of her terrified minion. Wind it up and load it. It will have to do.”

 “Are you all quite finished?” enquired Martellus. “Then perhaps it is time for me to make my move. I don’t want to waste any more of your valuable time. My Evil Plan is to take a leisurely stroll through Castle Heterodyne, taking in the historical ambience, looting any interesting artefacts that take my fancy and ending up in your magnificent library, which, once I’ve removed a few rare books on my reading list, I will set on fire. Then I will take the lovely Lady Heterodyne prisoner and return with her to the Refuge of Storms, there to be subject to my every whim and debauched in as many entertaining ways as possible. My uncle the Pope has some quite charming ideas on the subject, backed up by a lifetime of practical application.”

“You won’t get away with it,” growled Violetta.

“And who will stop me, little cousin? No weapon, no attack that you can make can have any effect on me. It even works for non-lethal combat, should you think you are going to be clever and restrain me or drop me from a high window. And as for non-directional weapons such as grenades, you only have to look at that smear on the wall over there that used to be one of your more enterprising minions to realise how effective that will be. And I have not yet even started using the many lethal weapons built into my body against you.”

“You should run and hide,” Zeetha whispered to Agatha. “We’ll do our best to hold him off.”

“Never!” exclaimed the Heterodyne, “There has to be something I can do.”

“How about this?” suggested Violetta. “What if we all attack him at once? He has a fancy field that reflects attacks, right? But how many can it reflect? If he gets lots of hits simultaneously, maybe he won’t be able to catch them all and some will get through.”

“But some attacks will be reflected back to the people that made them,” replied Florence.

“Zo vot?” asked Maxim. “Aren’t hyu ready to die for the Heterodyne?”

“We aren’t going to beat this arrogant son of a camel driver by dying for the Heterodyne!” exclaimed Violetta. “We beat him by getting him to die for the Refuge of Storms. If we all make non-lethal attacks then, we don’t get hurt all that much, but if we can get enough past his defences then we might be able to disable him, or at least take that bloody smug smile off his face.”

 “Seems like a good idea,” said Zeetha. “What have you got?”

“I have these two knives dosed with ‘killit #7. They should do the trick.”

“Isn’t that a pretty nasty poison?”

“Yes, but I’m a Smoke Knight. I take a small dose every morning. I’m immune. Well, probably. At least, it shouldn’t kill me. I hope.”

“Here Mistress, you take the gun,” said Snaug, handing the big brass gun back to her Mistress and producing an unusual pistol with a funnel-like muzzle from her tool belt.

“And what is that?” asked the Heterodyne. “I thought I told you that you aren’t allowed guns.”

“It’s not a gun Mistress! Honest! It only fires a cloud of powder; dried toad extract I got from Sergeant Major Tarlok.”

“Well, all right then. You can use it this once, but I’ll want to inspect it afterwards, okay?”

“Yes Mistress!”

 “Right then, that sounds like a plan,” said Zeetha. “Everyone ready?”

“Yep!”

“Ja!”

“MWAHAHAHAHA!!”

“Grrr!”

“Let’s do it!”

“No, not you!” Zeetha ordered Agatha. “That gun doesn’t count as a non-lethal attack.”

“How about if I hit him with a number 15 wrench?”

“No! You stay there, out of harm’s way. We... we need you to make scientific observations on this field of his. So we can counter it next time.”

The Heterodyne made a face, but did as she was told and lowered her gun.

“So, ladies, gentlemen and Jägers. On a count of three. One! Two! THREE!”

There was a brief flurry of confused, violent activity.

“Well, it sounded like a good plan at the time,” said Zeetha stepping away from the carnage. She was the only one of the attackers still standing.

“Yeah, so did the Battle of the Somme,” groaned Violetta, lying semi-conscious at her feet.

“I thought you said you were immune to that stuff.”

“Considering my body hasn’t dissolved, I’d say I’m pretty immune, wouldn’t you?”

“Good point.”

“Why aren’t _you_ injured?”

“Unlike some people,” she glanced down at the pile of injured Jägers and minions at Marcellus’ feet, “I’m not a complete idiot. All I did was trim his hair and so that’s all it did to me. This tech of his work should work exactly the same no matter how much, or how little, damage we do to him. Are you guys alright?”

“Ja, iz chust a flesh vound,” Oggie replied.

“How cum my metal arm gots chopped off?” complained Dimo. “Eet isn’t efen alif!”

“I nefer liked dot schpleen anyvay,” added Maxim.

“Florence?”

“Badly bitten leg. I’ve had worse.”

“No Mistress!” whimpered Snaug, from the depths of a toad-fuelled nightmare, “Please!  _Not the cheese pantalettes!!_ ” Not even Zeetha wanted to know what that was about.

“How amusing,” gloated Martellus. “For your information, in theory there is no limit to the amount of damage that the Revivification Field can absorb and no limit to the simultaneous number of attacks that it can reflect! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

Zeetha scowled in frustration at Martellus’ mockery. In fury, she began a savage pattern of swordplay, her blades making elegant patterns millimetres from his body. He stood still and looked her in the eye unperturbed. Suddenly he lifted his right arm up into the arc of one of the whirling blades. Zeetha, with consummate skill, stopped her swing just before it amputated his hand. The sickly green light arced back from point where her razor-sharp edge touched his skin and drew a 3 inch gash across her own forearm. Her blood dripped onto the floor. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. Carefully, she withdrew her blades.

“Give up little girl,” he sneered. “You’ll only end up getting hurt. This isn’t a place for a woman. Why don’t you make yourself useful? Go down to kitchen and make me a nice cup of tea. Three sugars, please love.”

Zeetha backed away in helpless fury “Agatha, I don’t ask you for much, but find a way for me to kill this _chokka-lingam_.”

“I’m thinking,” replied The Heterodyne through gritted teeth. “It’s not as though I can use a death ray on him. And I don’t even have a decent one. The Castle insisted on Snaug bringing this old wind-up piece of junk. Why would it do that? I mean until I fixed it, it didn’t even…. Oh!” She pulled a spanner from the tool belt, opened a panel on the gun and began to make adjustments to the weapon’s mechanism.

Martellus watched them with infuriating smugness.

“It is so amusing seeing you helpless. Are you quite sure no-one else would like to have a go?”

From the floor, the Jägers gave him a synchronised Ognian salute. Florence bared her teeth and snarled at him. Martellus offered her his leg. “Sure you don’t want another little nibble?” Then he leaned down and began pulling Florence’s tail. The Vapnoople’s wolf yelped in pain. Martellus laughed. “You know, I’d forgotten how much fun this is. Ah, you can’t beat the simple pleasures of childhood.” Bored by petty cruelty he casually stunned the wolf with a blow to the head from his metal hand.

Suddenly a panel in the wall burst open and a small bundle of fur and furious teeth rushed out at him.

“STOP IT! STOP HURTING MAMA!” shouted Cassie. Moloch dived after her, in a frantic, unsuccessful effort to catch his daughter before it was too late.

Cassie leapt for Martellus’ throat. Being only a puppy, she couldn’t jump that high. Martellus fended her off and Cassie bit his fingers. With a cry of pain, he lifted up his hand with the snarling puppy dangling from it. The Revivification Field swirled around them, nipping Cassie’s toes but doing as little damage to herself as she was doing to Martellus. With a cruel grin, Martellus grasped the puppy’s body with his left hand, the mechanical hand built for him by Agatha, and squeezed. Cassie gave a gasp and released her grip. Then Martellus activated the hand’s lightning weapon. Electricity arched through Cassie’s body, burning it from the inside out. She gave a heart-rending howl of pain. Martellus held her at arm’s length and increased the charge, shifting his grasp to her head to make sure her brain was completely destroyed. Within seconds, he was holding no more than a bundle of burned flesh and fur.

The onlookers could only gaze helpless. Martellus casually threw the smoking corpse away as though it were so much discarded rubbish. Moloch bent down and picked her up, struggling to believe that this charred and ruined thing had been his daughter just moments before.

“Why?” asked Agatha. “Martellus, why did you do that? She wasn’t a threat to you! She was only a little girl.”

“Why? Because I can! I did that to hurt you. There you stand, the great Agatha Heterodyne, the high and mighty self-proclaimed Girl Genius, the strongest spark in Europa. The Great Heterodyne who has sworn to Make Everything Better and Fix the World. And here you are, in the Heart of your own Lair, unable to protect even some pathetic little abomination of science. How does that feel? What do all your fine words and boasts and your patronising zeal amount to? What use are you?”

“That is evil. True evil at its worst.”

“Of course it is! The definition of Evil is hurting others for no other point than to hurt them. That is what I have become! That is what I do! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

“Have you no honour left? No shame? No humanity? Is this what you want the Crown of the Storm King to be?”

Martellus eyes shone.

 “My time in a state of unlife has opened my eyes. The Crown of the Storm King is an illusion. A trap for the gullible and unwary. To don the crown chains you in shackles of responsibility and tradition; the obligation to run the Kingdom, to protect its borders, to listen to the bleating of the little people. I am beyond that! With my genius and the power of the Refuge of Storms behind me, no law can touch me, no rule can be made to apply to me! I will be free to do as I please, to go where I will, to take what I want. I shall be as rapacious as a Spanish fisherman and as cold-hearted as a Scottish landowner! Those who seek to oppose me will die, because there is no weapon, no power than can harm me! The entire World will be one huge toy for me to play with as I please and break when I grow bored with it. I am the predator on the herd of insects who swarm and multiply, trying to build their little pointless lives that I will crush beneath the heel of my boot at my whim!”

“For I have plumbed the darkest depths in my quest for ultimate power! I have signed the Book of Azathoth! I have stolen the terrible forbidden secrets of the Xhosa Sangoma! I have made the Black Pilgrimage to the City of Chorazin and there saluted the Levegő Hercege! I have torn the unspeakable mysteries from the heart of the blasphemous Dzyan manuscript! There is no depth to which I will not descend, no depravity too vile in my quest for ultimate power! I have even…,” he paused and clawed at the air for dramatic effect, “performed the Pratiloma Ujjayi Ritual!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” His unwilling audience gasped at such shameless, wanton wickedness.

“Ha!” laughed Martellus, “Your puny weapons are helpless against my advanced science. Nothing in your arsenal can possibly defeat my Revivification Field. The more destructive the weapon you turn against me, the stronger I will become and the more destruction you will rain down upon yourselves. Why don’t you just admit that I am the most powerful Spark and the most brilliant scientist in the World?!”

“Well, okay then,” said Agatha, tucking her spanner back into her tool belt. “Let’s get married.”

“RESISTANCE IS FUT… er… Sorry?”

“All that speech about freedom and power! You are so right! Ever since I became The Heterodyne I have spent all my time trying to fix things, whether it’s been the Castle or Mechanicsburg or the World! And for what? Just so the little people whine at me about collateral damage and the people I’ve killed and why haven’t I fixed everything for them! And you know what? I’m sick of it! No more ingratitude! No more whining little people! I AM THE HETERODYNE! My power is limitless! It’s time I stopped being at the beck and call of all these peasants and started to enjoy life! If I join with you, we’ll have the power to take on anyone. Let the Storm King and the Wulfenbach Empire waste their time with bureaucrats and taxes and justice and other people’s problems. Together we’ll live here in Mechanicsburg and do what we want and take what we want! And I have to admit, seeing you standing there in your boxer shorts makes me realise just how magnificent your body is. What do you say Martellus?!”

“Seriously? You _want_ to join forces with me? No, this is some kind of trick isn’t it?”

“Honestly!” exclaimed Agatha in exasperation. “You’ve finally persuaded me to embrace my true heritage and now you won’t believe me! What can I do to convince you?” she looked round the room. “I know! I’ll kill von Zinzer!”

“Hey, what?!” squeaked Moloch, looking up from the sad charred remains in his arms. “Now wait a minute!”

Agatha turned on him in fury. “You! I’ve never forgiven you from that time in Beetleburg! You mugged me! Struck an unarmed and defenceless girl! And if I hadn’t put up a fight you’d probably have done far worse, you nasty little man! Then when you were on Castle Wulfenbach you tried to kill me again and you might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Krosp! And you’ve never even said sorry!”

“Actually…”

“And now here you are, supposedly working for me? But have you sworn an oath to The Heterodyne? Oh no, it’s always ‘oh I’m not a minion, what am I doing in this horrible place, I’m on the first airship out of here’, you vile traitor! You’re willing enough to live here under my protection and eat my food and drink. Well, now you are going to pay! Stand on that spot just there and don’t move while I shoot you, you horrible little man!”

Agatha pointed the big brass gun at von Zinzer who stood paralysed with fear. She pulled a lever on the side and the mechanical autoloader began to tick ominously.

“Martellus, dear,” she said, “if you could stand a little to the left, yes just a bit further, there perfect, so you can get a good view and you don’t get too splattered with pieces of traitor. Now…”

Before she could pull the trigger Florence groggily hauled herself to her feet and stepped between her and Moloch.

“If you want to shoot your head minion, the best man in Mechanicsburg, then you’ll have to shoot me first!” she snarled, baring teeth too large and numerous for any human mouth. She pointed at her chest. “Go on! Aim here!”

Agatha sighed in frustration. “Get out of the way you bad dog! GET DOWN!” In reply Florence put her arms around Moloch, still between him and the gun. She growled at Agatha, not the barking or warning snarl of a dog, but the feral aggression of a wolf. Moloch closed his eyes in terror.

“Oh well,” said Agatha impatiently, “it’s not as though I don’t have plenty more minions,” and pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _That would be a good cliff hanger, if you haven’t read any of the other stories in this series._
> 
> _Sergeant Major Tarlok is a colleague over at the Jägerkin Forum._


	3. Unlimited Ascent

Moloch screamed as the big brass gun that had once belonged to Captain Vole began to fire. The bullets leaping from the gun swerved to the right, no longer shooting straight thanks to Agatha’s adjustment to the mechanism. Instead of hitting Mr and Mrs von Zinzer, they curved into Martellus, bursting into flames as they did so. The villain’s body was torn apart, but the mad smile remained. Even as he died, as he had already died several times already that day, he knew that his Revivification Field would protect him and bring him back to life. The sickly green light shimmered and struck out, matching the path of the rounds from the Big Brass Gun, but it curved away from Agatha, mimicking the twisted trajectory of the bullets, and hit the far wall. Agatha ceased fire and watched in serene detachment. The field flickered, seeking for the _élan vital_ it needed to restore Martellus’ life. It found nothing. Gradually it faded and died, leaving the charred and shredded body unhealed. Very carefully, Moloch opened one eye.

“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!” Agatha gloated in triumph. “GOT YOU! YOU FOOL!! Did you really think you defeat me?! I am so much cleverer than I look! How foolish of you to threaten The Heterodyne in her own…. AAIIEE!!”

Her wild exultation was suddenly checked by a figure full of teeth that cannoned into her and knocked her to the ground. She looked up in fear at Florence’s enormous maw poised to tear out her throat. The wolf was sitting on top of her, her knees in Agatha’s stomach, her hands grasping her hair, her face a rictus of feral fury.

“Heterodyne or no, alpha female or no, if you ever, _ever_ , pull a trick like that on me and mine again I will kill you! KILL YOU, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!!” she snarled.

“Y-yes, yes, I’m s-sorry,” stammered Agatha. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, honestly. I know you’re upset but I had to…” Florence suddenly got to her feet. Without another word she turned her back on Agatha and limped to Moloch, who was holding the remains of their daughter in his arms, still trying to comprehend the reality of what had just happened. She took Cassie’s body and Moloch hugged both of them. Somehow, he had been expecting his wife to howl like a wolf, but she sobbed like a human. Without a word or glance at anyone else, they left the room. No-one tried to stop them.

Agatha got shakily to her feet. “Thanks for not hurting her,” she told the Castle.

“Oh, I think you deserved that,” replied Castle Heterodyne. “I wouldn’t have let her kill you of course, at least not until you produce some more Heterodynes. On the other hand, after pulling such a cruel trick, a little nibble would not have been out of order.”

“But I had to do it. I had to make sure Martellus didn’t suspect anything, so he would stand still in exactly the right place to make the geometry work. Surely none of you thought that I actually meant to shoot Moloch? Did you?”

“I know my _zumil_ well enough to tell when she is bluffing,” said Zeetha reassuringly. Everyone else looked at their feet.

Now the fighting was over, the paramedics poured into the room to conduct triage: the New Great Hospital for the wounded men and women, Mamma Gikka’s for the wounded Jägers, and Castle Heterodyne for the monsters and those who were technically no longer alive. Snaug was still screaming about the mice so they took her away in her little iron cage.

Zeetha and Agatha walked over to the remains of Martellus von Blitzengaard.

“Wow,” said Zeetha weakly, “er… I see you’ve made the bullets burst into flames now.”

“The gun shoots faster too. One of the Jägers thought it would be a really good idea.”

Leaving Agatha to sort through Martellus’ scattered remains in search of his tech before the clean-up crew shovelled the pieces into a biohazard container, Zeetha went back to check on Violetta.

“You okay?” she asked the Smoke Knight, kneeling down to help her to her feet. “Sorry, stupid question. How bad it is?”

“Bleaugh, I’ll live.” Violetta struggled to stand and then decided that perhaps it might be wiser to stay lying down for a little longer. “I’m still trying to decide if this is a good thing. Jeez, I haven’t felt this bad since the morning after Moloch’s wedding.”

“You did drink rather a lot that night. And Theo DuMedd was mixing the drinks.”

“Yeah, that was some hangover. The last thing I remember is leaving the bar with Tarvek. When I woke up next morning it felt as though someone had clubbed me unconscious with a big stick. Thanks again for putting me to bed and everything. It’s at times like that when you find out who your real friends are. You did me a big favour that night.”

‘More than you’ll ever know,’ thought Zeetha with a smile. She bent down and put Violetta over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift. “Come on, let’s get you to the Hospital so they can have a proper look at you.”

“You know,” remarked Violetta, as she was carried through the streets, “I think the Castle is starting to mellow under Agatha’s influence. It seemed upset by the trick played on Moloch and Florence. Okay, I’m sure it would have acted if Florence had actually tried to kill Agatha, but time was when it would have crushed her without a second thought. And it always used to like cruel tricks. Do you think it is actually getting fond of us?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” replied Zeetha. “I don’t want to rain on your parade here, but I wonder what really upset it. Was it because Agatha played a cruel trick on bereaved parents? Or was it because it thought the cruel trick had been played on it, and that Agatha was going to become like her ancestors after all?”

“I wish that you hadn’t said that.”

\--------------------------*

In the end, Agatha managed, to repair, resuscitate or revive almost all of the casualties of Martellus’ attack. She was particularly pleased with the new extendable neck she designed for the decapitated Jäger (and so was he). Of course, some of the normal humans were turned into insane ravening monsters by the revivification process, but this provided an ideal opportunity for The Heterodyne to try out her new rehabilitation program, a collaboration with the Vapnoople’s Bears’ Doc, where a process of mindfulness training, beating with large mallets and intense counselling sessions brought the sufferers back, if not to sanity, at least to the point where they could be integrated into the family of Heterodyne monsters. This proved remarkably effective, mostly because even the most insane ravening monster would rather behave than be forced to sit through another one of those gatherings where everyone holds hands and has to talk about their feelings.

There were only two permanent casualties. The first was Corporal Schicklgruber. It was unfortunate that he’d selected the rifle’s burst mode as well as the explosive bullets. There simply weren’t enough recognisable bits to put back together. They collected his remains in a box and gave him a place of honour on the regimental mantelpiece. 

The other was, of course, Cassie. Martellus had made very sure that any revivification would be impossible. Agatha did consider the idea of slipping in a replacement brain – with improvements! - until Zeetha had had a quiet talk, after which the proposal was never mentioned again. Given Moloch’s views on revivification and Mad Science in general, creating a new daughter for him who was not actually her and who had a clock in her tummy would have been a cruel trick, not an act of kindness.

\----------------------*

They held Cassie’s funeral service in the Red Cathedral a couple of days later. After the words had been said and the hymns sung, Cassie’s body was taken up the hill to the public graveyard on the edge of town. Moloch was quite adamant that he did not want his daughter buried in the Heterodyne family vaults.

Florence and Moloch walked at the head of the funeral procession, carrying their daughter’s coffin. Behind them came The Heterodyne and then all the retinue of the Castle. As they walked through Mechanicsburg, the City simply stopped. Every foundry, every workshop, every restaurant, even the overworked clerks in Herr Steuermann's office stood silent. Not only that but all the mechanism of Mechanicsburg bowed its head in respect. All the fountains, all the bridges, all the thousands of whispering mechanisms that formed the City switched off. It was a background susurrus that the Mechaniacs were so used to that they no longer heard it. When it ceased, the silence was deafening.

They reached the graveyard and lowered the tiny coffin into the final resting place prepared for it. The hum of an approaching aero engine interrupted the private thoughts of the mourners standing around the grave. A silver _Sturzzeug_ was flying down the valley, directly towards them, a final flypast in honour of the little girl who had wanted to be a pilot. As it came overhead Agatha looked up.

“Cassie,” she paused to ensure her voice remained under control. “Cassie, this is The Heterodyne. You are cleared for unlimited ascent.” The words echoed around the Mechanicsburg, relayed by the voice of the Castle. The pilot opened her throttle and pulled back on her control wheel. The _Sturzzeug_ zoomed vertically into the sky, becoming smaller and smaller, until, with a last glint of sunlight on its polished wings it was lost to sight in the deep blue of the mountain sky, like a tiny soul ascending into the heavens.

\------------------------*

And really, that should have been the end of the story. But then The Heterodyne received a message from the Pope, Martellus’ Uncle at the Refuge of Storms, demanding the return of his nephew’s mortal remain for proper burial. Agatha assembled her team to break the news. It was not well received.

“Look,” she told them. “I know you all want Martellus reduced to a pile of ash and scattered to the four winds, but unfortunately, we have to hand him over.”

“ _Why?!_ ” everyone said at once. Agatha scowled. She was sure that no-one ever said that to the Old Masters.

“Because it is the right thing to do. Even the mortal remains of our enemies must be treated with respect. One day, the situation may be reversed and it may be our own people that we want sent home for proper burial.”

“But he _is_ dead, isn’t he?” asked Fraulein Snag. “I mean, permanently dead this time.”

“I… I don’t know. I’m sorry. We thought he was dead last time and still he came back. Looking at what is left, I’d have said he can’t be revived again. But considering the tech he has obtained by consorting with the Powers of Darkness and who knows what else the Pope and his minions might have at the Refuge of Storms – now, now I’m not sure about anything.”

She looked at the expressions on the faces around her. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any choice. I don’t want to hand him over either, especially as I still haven’t finished my dissection. The Pope will be arriving to collect Martellus’ mortal remains tomorrow. Under the circumstances, I am not about to extend anything other than the minimum of hospitality, but I’ll need some of you there to help with the transfer and to keep an eye on him and his minions. Now I know you’re not happy about this, but I just want to make it quite clear that no-one is to be killed. I’ve guaranteed their safety. Do you all understand?”

“Yes,” everyone muttered.

“Heterodyne?” Agatha asked the ceiling.

“Er, yes Mistress?” asked the Castle innocently.

“I didn’t hear you. Am I clear?!”

“But he is an enemy of the House of…”

“HETERODYNE!!”

“Sigh. Very well Mistress. The Pope and his minions are not to be killed.”

\-------*

The Pope arrived by the Corbettite railway. He insisted that his train be given priority over all other services, even though his monks had devised a careful plan that allowed his train to elegantly interleave with all of the scheduled trains without disrupting the timetable. The monks had no option to obey, even though this meant the Pope arrived in Mechanicsburg 37 minutes early and the timetable was disrupted so much that every train in a one-hundred-mile radius ran late. The monks were mortified and distressed at such blatant disregard for their most cherished beliefs, but the Pope brushed aside their protests with stern sermons on the importance of faith and obedience. The monks couldn’t know that the whole point of the Pope’s action was to disrupt the timetable as much as possible for no better reason than to make the monks mortified and distressed. As far as he was concerned that was what being Pope was all about.

Punctuality is the politeness of Princes, so even if Agatha felt she had to treat the Pope with respect and could not afford to show overt hostility, she did at leave him waiting in the Mourning Room for half an hour before she went to greet him. When she arrived, his Holiness was pale and shaking with anger. His entourage looked terrified, afraid that their Master might vent his displeasure on them.

“Ah, sorry I’m late,” she lied, her fingers crossed behind her back. The Pope stared at her in fury.

“No more than I would expect from The Heterodyne, the burner of beauty, the annihilator of the aesthetic, the deliberate destroyer of cultural heritage!”

Agatha raised her eyebrows in surprise. Those were not the insults that she had been expecting.

“I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your burning of the irreplaceable fine art collection of the Silver Sheikh of course!”

“Fine art?!” exclaimed Agatha. “It was all indecent images of small children!”

“An irreplaceable resource of spiritual bliss! Now lost forever thanks to your close-minded prejudice!”

“Hrmph! Do you want the remains of your evil nephew back or not?”

“Of course! My minions will be arriving in an airship within the hour to pick up the casket.”

“An airship! Don’t you want to take it yourself?”

“Certainly not! I might get my hands dirty! I shall return to my Refuge on my railway.”

“If you are sending a dirigible, why did you come here?”

“Why to gloat of course! Be assured that the smallest piece of my nephew is all we will need at the Refuge of Storms to rebuild him. Martellus von Blitzengaard will rise again, more powerful than ever! He will return and this time he will destroy you – or the time after that, or the time after that! He only has to succeed once! No-one else in Mechanicsburg, will never be able to sleep easy in their bed again! Once we have crushed you, we will destroy the puny Wulfenbach Empire, the pathetic Storm King in his little fortress, and then we will annihilate all the false Popes and burn the heretics, until only the true Pope rules in Europa, to usher in a new dark age of ignorance and superstition!! And after Europa, The World! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Lurking in the corridor, Moloch von Zinzer was listening. His expression hardened with uncharacteristic grim resolution. Unseen, he walked away in the direction of the component stores. Agatha refused to be intimidated by the evil Pope’s insane maniacal laughter.

“Do your worst, you fiend!”

“I intend to, wench!” He turned his back on Agatha in a peevish display of bad manners and stormed out of the room with his minions trailing behind him. Even given the circumstances, Agatha thought his behaviour was a little rude.

“Castle,” she said accusingly, “have you been annoying the Pope? Remember what I told you.”

“Hmmph,” groused the Castle. “You are the Heterodyne in the heart of your own lair. I _am_ the heart of your own lair. You need show respect to no-one. Especially one like him.”

“So you’ve been taunting him while he has been waiting.”

“Heaven forbid! I hardly said a word. I simply played him a little light music.”

“Oh that explains it. More of Tympanus Heterodyne’s dreadful instruments that tortured animals to make the different notes.”

“Now, I‘ve told you before, the _Katzenklavier_ was a modern myth invented for the tourists. It never existed.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Oh no, young Tympanus was most disparaging of the tonal quality of wailing cats. He found he got a much purer sound using small children. He selected them specially. It was a great honour. Not that the ungrateful population ever appreciated it.”

“And that’s what you played the Pope?!”

“No, certainly not! You said not to. Anyway, I suspect he would have enjoyed it. No, I played a perfectly innocent piece of music performed on a boring, mundane harpsichord. A charming composition by the respectable English composer Purcell entitled ‘A New Irish Tune’. Nothing could be more innocuous.”

“And why did that make him angry?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Hmm.” Agatha was pretty sure she was missing something, but right now she didn’t have time to investigate. Maybe she could come back to it later.

\---------------------------*

Meanwhile, the Pope and his entourage were striding back towards the Castle gate, where their carriage waited to take them back to the Corbettite terminal. Turning a corner, they found their way blocked by Zeetha, Violetta, Dimo, Maxim and Oggie, all with weapons drawn, backed up by an angry rumble of Castle mechanism. They closed in around the Pope menacingly. His minions, even his bodyguard, took a couple of wise, nervous steps backwards. The Pope stood his ground and met his opponents’ gaze with an arrogant sneer.

“Please. Do any of you heathen peasants dare to commit the mortal sin of raising a hand against the Pope? Your Lady Heterodyne has issued quite specific instructions that I am not to be killed has she not?”

“Yes, quite specific.” said the Castle conversationally. A flagstone in front of the Pope swivelled up. Two iron hammers wielded by mechanical arms complete with beautifully crafted hands emerged from the floor and struck his legs hard with a satisfying, splintering sound. “She was, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of knee caps.”

The retinue from the Castle of Storms picked up their crippled, screaming leader and hurried away with unseemly haste. Violetta looked up to the ceiling.

“You've been waiting a long time to steal that line, haven't you?”

“Years and years,” confirmed the Castle happily.

\----------------------*

Moloch collected the components he needed from the stores and hurried back to the docking bay where Martellus’ biohazard container was waiting to be loaded into the dirigible from the Refuge of Storms. He had made a small and unauthorised modification to the Castle’s senses, so that it would see only the same repeated loop of the empty room containing the casket. He had almost assembled the heat-reflecting plates into a small sphere of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons with a small detuned aetheric injector at each apex, but he hesitated as he held the last hexagonal plate ready to slot it into place. His hand shook uncontrollably at the enormous step he was about to take.

“What are you doing Moloch?” whispered a voice in his ear. Moloch screamed and jumped out of his skin. The plate flew into the air but a hand covered in fur caught it before it fell to the ground. Moloch turned and found his wife standing right beside him, her face full of concern. Although Mr and Mrs von Zinzer are on the whole a very well-matched couple, the combination of Moloch’s highly strung nerves and Florence’s stalking instinct do cause the occasional problem.

“I've never smelt you like this before Moloch,” said Florence, “not even after, even after this last week. What are you doing?” Moloch hesitated. He did not want to tell the terrible truth that only he knew to anyone, not even his wife. She looked into his eyes and his resolve faltered. He told her the Secret that could Destroy the World.

“As far as I can tell,” he said, “this won’t make such a big explosion as the one at Castle Geschwindigkeit. And the Refuge of Storms is isolated. There shouldn’t be any collateral damage. But… should we do this or not?” He took the final plate back from his wife. “Is it better to bear the pain that the World has given us, or is it better to take up arms against it, even if we are battling against an enemy that we can't beat?” His hand holding the hexagon hovered uncertainly over the final space in the tiny engine. Florence reached out and gently placed her hand on top of his. They looked at each other and they decided. Together they pushed the heat-reflecting panel into place to activate the engine and then concealed it in the lid of the biohazard container. They left as silently as they had come, restoring the Castle’s sight as they went. Five minutes later the minions of the Pope arrived, loaded the mortal remains of Martellus von Blitzengaard into their dirigible and sailed back to the Refuge of Storms.

\-----------------------*

In the early hours of the morning, Moloch and Florence were still awake, sitting at an open tower window in Castle Heterodyne that faced towards the Refuge of Storms. They held each other tight in silence. At first, they had talked but now there was nothing left for either of them to say. Just being together in their grief was enough. In front of them on the window alcove were three clocks. Moloch had wondered about that. If you had one clock, you never knew if it was right. If you had two clocks you never knew which one was right. But if you had three then you knew the correct time was somewhere in the space between all three of them. It made sense when Florence explained it. Anyway, all three clocks were made in Mechanicsburg so they agreed within 7 seconds of each other.

Moloch felt Florence's body tense as the hand of the clocks crept round to the appointed time. Beyond the mountains there was a sudden brief bright flash like summer lightning in the night sky. Unless you happened to be looking in exactly the right direction and were expecting it, you would probably have missed it. Some minutes, later there was a distant drawn-out rumble, like rolling thunder from a storm far away, hardly enough to wake a sleeper or interrupt a conversation. Moloch felt no elation or guilt, just a great emptiness. He kissed Florence, got up and closed the window. Then Mr and Mrs von Zinzer went to bed and dreamless sleep.

\-------------------------------------------*

Moloch von Zinzer sat in one of the smaller refectories in Castle Heterodyne, eating his breakfast without tasting it. Everything around him was the same as it had been for years since he had moved to Mechanicsburg after the restoration of the Heterodyne. He instructed the same people, repaired and maintained the same machines, put out the odd fire, both literal and metaphorical, as he had always done, but somehow it was a different Moloch von Zinzer doing all these things. He himself, the real Moloch, had taken a step back inside himself. It was as though he had created a version of his double-secret hiding cupboard, not in the Castle, but inside his own mind, from where he was looking out at the other Moloch going through the meaningless motions of his former life. He'd watched the other Moloch try and comfort Florence, collect all of Cassie's toys, blankets and basket and hide them away in a safe place for when they might be able to bear to look at them again in remembrance of their daughter. He'd watched the other von Zinzer start back at the endless work of keeping The Heterodyne alive and Castle Heterodyne functional, because when you were trying to save the lives of half a dozen minions from another unexpected side-effect at least the immediacy of the moment made you forget the pain.

The other von Zinzer laid down his knife and fork. One of the serving staff stopped by to collect his plate.

“Have you finished, Herr von Zinzer?”

“Oh yes, I’m done, thank you Fraulein Pirta.”

“Only you've left some little bits of food on the side of your plate.” Moloch looked down and grinned.

“Oh those! Those are for Cassie....” he stopped in mid-sentence as he remembered. He waved the plate away and turned his back on Fraulein Pirta to avoid meeting her gaze. The waitress took the plate and herself back to the kitchen as fast as she could. Moloch crept into the depths of the double-secret hiding cupboard in his mind and slammed down the steel shutters, pulled the watertight hatch closed behind him and locked it shut. Then, without a word, he left the refectory and went to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _If you are wondering about parts of this story, you need to read ‘Agatha Heterodyne and the Big Brass Gun’ and ‘Agatha Heterodyne and the Cataclysm Engine’._   
>  _The improvements to the Big Brass Gun were suggested by Lieutenant Colonel M1a1x1i1m1s1h1a1t from the Jägerkin Forum._   
>  _Originally, this was going to be the end of this story arc, but we can’t leave Moloch there. Assuming I still have any readers left after this, there’s one more story to come._

**Author's Note:**

> _Girl Genius and the associated characters depicted here are the creations of Studio Foglio. Florence is inspired by Florence Ambrose from Freefall._


End file.
